FIN Alley
by Bone White Butterfly
Summary: newest oneshot: 'Granger had mentioned withdrawal symptoms in one of her intermittent ramblings. It felt like those. He smirked, came back to the present, & leveled his wand at the skeleton swooping through the gaping doorway. Time for his fix.' HGDM…ish?
1. Table of Contents

**Naught Alley**

_Here are writings labyrinthine and tales that defy the call to comply, and, though all are meaningless in the end, stray until then from your bright, canonical way to wander through pathways and Byzantine back ways and into the alley that is Naught. _

* * *

Table of Contents

* * *

_02. Time Bomb  
_There was a certain trick to living with an unruly haired, bespectacled, sixteen-year-old magic time bomb. The Dursleys had pretty much nailed it over the summer.

_03._ _Basilisk_ (what if?)  
"Close your eyes, luv," he said, and Hermione obeyed, but at the sound of a crash her eyes flew open again. The thing that had chased her into the alley lay unmoving, and the strange boy with the glowing scar was gone. Later at Hogwarts**_…_**

_04. Don't Write  
_It was an early summer evening, and four friends sat and talked of the future even as it unraveled before their eyes.

_05. The Social Worker _(satire)  
It was an anonymous tip, and the party in question was popular in the community, so naturally the claim of abuse vanished almost immediately. Someone caught it, though, and wouldn't rest until she learned the truth about Number Four. Abused!Harry fic

_06. Shattered _(timefic)  
'Granger had mentioned withdrawal symptoms once in one of her intermittent ramblings. It felt like those. He smirked, coming back to the present, and leveled his wand at the skeleton swooping through the gaping doorway. Time for his fix.' HGDM…er, ish?


	2. Time Bomb

"**Time Bomb"**

Summer before 6th Year / AU.

* * *

There was a certain trick to living with an unruly haired, bespectacled, sixteen-year-old magic time bomb. The Dursleys had pretty much nailed it over the summer. It involved avoiding eye contact, pretending they didn't know the boy existed, and letting him read that blasted owl-fetched newspaper wherever he damn well pleased. He had it spread over the dining table that morning, so the family acted like it was perfectly normal to eat breakfast in the living room.

There was also a certain trick to eating with a plate on one's thighs, and the mother and son of the family were far from masters. In Petunia's case, her narrow legs together were much thinner than her plate of fried eggs and grapefruit, an odd combination she had grown fond of during the last summer. The china tottered from side to side and threatened to fall either way, spilling grapefruit onto the sofa, if she moved.

The young master Dudley had a different problem than his mother. Though the life insurance company had rejoiced when the boy's weight dropped below fatal levels during the last year, he was having troubles adjusting to his new body image. For example, it used to be impossible for him to touch his knees together because of the result of thousands of jelly doughnuts being packed between his thighs. Oh, he might have managed it if he was truly motivated, but he would have left that experience singing a high soprano. Permanently. In any case, there was newfound space between his legs and he didn't know what to do with it. Most of the time, he forgot it was there. Out of habit, his legs spread wide to accommodate the phantom fat mass, and the plate kept falling through the gap onto the seat cushion below.

Vernon, the father and the only one who didn't seem much worried about his plate, went through his morning routine. He opened his pocket calendar, counted the days to September 1st, then triumphantly crossed out the day before with a pen blacker than night. The calendar was returned to his inner jacket pocket, and he found himself patting it affectionately as he continued with breakfast. _'Just a few more days,'_ he thought. His eyes darted towards the dining room, where a wiry young man stood, poised over the table in a way that seemed almost deadly. A hawk about to swoop down on its prey.

Shaking his head and not stopping, Vernon turned back to his bacon. His intent was to finish breakfast quickly and get to work. With all the time he was putting in, he was lined up properly for a promotion. He told himself he was doing long hours and weekends for the promotion. Of course he wasn't avoiding his own home. That was preposterous.

Meanwhile, Harry Potter had closed his eyes and now sagged into the unusual silence that had descended over the Dursley household that summer. He was grateful for it. The quiet had allowed him to think as the months rolled by. But now…now he didn't know what to think.

It was front page news—and back page news—crammed into every crimped corner. Every piece had it's own angle. Together, they told a pretty complete story of it.

A personal ad read:

_17th century Baron seeking Ominous Atmosphere with Gothic Charm  
'Four hundred year phantasm with spooky good looks comes complete with the trappings of a filthy rich nobleman and an impressive silver bloodstain across the front (death wound: vertical slit from the neck down—the butler did it). Expertise is terror with specialties in frightening the dead and small children. For information and references, contact Albus Dumbledore...'_

Harry switched to the editorial section. There, an ancient scholar had pulled his nose out of his dusty books long enough to write about the history of the situation. Harry scanned a certain paragraph.

'…_Not only did Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin and Gryffindor build the walls of Hogwarts; they also imbued the school and surrounding forest region with a powerful enchantment. _(Here there was an odd rectangular smudge that, when placed under a microscope, turned out to be several thousand words speculating about the origins of the enchantment. Thank Jove for editors.) _This great magic's main purpose was to enshroud the school and wood, rendering it invisible to the outside world._ (Another smudge about Avalon, Atlantis, and other favorite tourist attractions of wizards.) _Now that…'_

He didn't read any further, crossing over to an article about the impact it had on the Wizarding society.

'…_It has long been a school of the people. Since it's inception, there has never been a student turned away because of birth or life circumstances. _(The words _'Or rather, there haven't been any officially,'_ were nestled inside an atom of the paper. To find it, the reader would have to first know what an atom was and then need to split it open—and survive the resulting nuclear chain reaction. It seemed the editor was taking no chances.) _Where Durmstrang examines pedigree, where Xanadu ignores the lower castes, Hogwarts accepted with open arms. Where else is there a place for the poor, for the Muggleborn, for the children who are more than human? Where else will they go…'_

Quickly, he looked away, turning to a tasty morsel offered up by one of the Prophet's preeminent gossips.

HGVK Strikes Again—This Time: Durmstrang

Harry heaved a much put upon sigh. To his regret, he had yet to give in to the all-but-consuming urge to _Avada Kedavra_ the creator of the romantic pairing acronyms that so often seemed to involve him, his friends, _him,_ a few of their acquaintances, **_him,_** and—he shuddered—Severus Snape. HPSS: the stuff of nightmares. He didn't know how it had happened, but somehow a rumor had gotten out that he'd spent many evenings alone with the Potions Professor during his fifth year.

He shook his head vigorously and returned to the written piece of _hearsay_. At least the idea of a HGVK was fairly tame. The only person likely to go into an apoplectic fit upon reading about it was Ron Weasley. After all, Hermione and Viktor Krum were known to have dated previously. They were also not arch nemeses, fulfilled that nice opposite genders category—and they didn't break the oh-so-very-important 'no snogging your teacher' rule…

'…_Viktor Krum accepted a part-time teaching position at _Durmstrang _after the Headmaster agreed to the Seeker's condition that his Muggleborn girlfriend, former _Hogwarts_ student Hermione Granger, be allowed to attend...'_

(Faraway, in a Burrow somewhere, a redheaded boy required the magical equivalent of the Heimlich maneuver when he inexplicably choked on his breakfast sausage.)

Harry sighed as he refolded the newspaper. There was no escaping it, though he had tried. He had scoured the entire edition, looking for anything that said "no" against the general consensus. All he was asking for was a grain of hope, but there was none to be found. He threw the paper back on the table and glowered down at the front page.

The cover picture said it all. It showed Hogwarts. The grand old castle he called home was perfectly still—and that wasn't just because it was made of stone. That had never stopped it before. It was frozen because the photograph was non-magical. Worse than that, a Muggle had taken it. A hitchhiker had stumbled onto the castle grounds, saw the school for what it was, whipped out his camera, and taken it. From there, he had strolled into Hogsmeade Village and fortunately been obliviated, but the damage was already done. A Muggle had found his way to Hogwarts, the most protected magical place in the world, which could only mean one thing.

The magic was gone.

Harry's hands clenched.

Nails in the coffin, the bold letters above the photograph read: "HOGWARTS CLOSED."

A fist suddenly slammed onto the dining table. The time bomb had gone off.

The Dursleys jumped. Petunia's plate careened off to the side and Dudley's plopped down between his legs onto the sofa. Vernon reached for his heart—or his calendar, hard to tell—as the dangerous young man in the next room collapsed down into a chair and glared up at the chandelier. It began to flicker. Not the electric lights. The crystal. Flashes of green and black blazed through the smooth planes and facets. A year ago, Vernon would have boxed the boy's ears for that, black magic and murderer godfather and all. But a year ago, he had been dealing with his wife's nephew Harry Potter, not the time bomb.

His unfinished breakfast abandoned on the easy chair, Vernon grabbed up his briefcase and was out the door almost before he got it opened. '_Just a few more days_,' was his feverish thought as he clutched at the pocket calendar through the folds of his jacket. Just a few more days, then the time bomb would be that crazy school's problem, and life would go back to blessed normalcy.


	3. Basilisk

"Close your eyes, luv," he said, and Hermione obeyed, but at the sound of a crash her eyes flew open again. The thing that had chased her into the alley lay unmoving, and the strange boy with the glowing scar was gone. Later at Hogwarts…

_Basilisk _

_by _

_Bone White Butterfly_

XXX

"'Nette"

Her ankle turned beneath her, and she tumbled to the ground with a scream. Sensing her defeat, the creature slowed and came to loom over her. Its flashing eyes bore through her soul and exposed her secret fears. She threw up her arms in a final, useless try to protect herself and waited for death—only to discover that it refused to come. She looked up fearfully and saw that the monster had paused in its final lunge and was now staring at something down the alleyway.

_She turned and saw a boy. He stood calmly with his hand upraised. Besides the dim light of the smoggy heavens, there was a green glow that seemed to come from his face. In the faint illumination, she could see dark glasses and dark hair, handsome if sharp-planed features, and a wry half-smile that made her think of the Mona Lisa._

_The glow intensified, and she realized that it was coming from a lightning-patterned scar that stretched across his forehead. _

"_Close your eyes, luv," the boy said to her with that same small smile. Something about the way he said it made her obey without question, but at the sound of a crash her eyes flew open again. The creature that had chased her into the alley lay unmoving on the concrete before her. _

_Looking back, she froze. The strange boy with the glowing scar was gone._

XXX

'Exchange student,' they said, 'doesn't speak English.' 'Just got released from Azkhaban; crazy as an animal if you get too close.' 'Mistook a condensed sleeping potion for a milkshake as a little kid and woke up last week.' Soon rumors mixed as they were wont to and it was decided that the strange young man sitting alone in his compartment was a Transylvanian wizard raised by wolves who had been trained in his dreams to be somewhat civilized while being kept in a drugged sleep in the wizard's prison for safety reasons.

"Oh yes, perfectly logical," Hermione replied to Ron Weasley when her told her of the final verdict. He seemed to pick up on her subtle brand of sarcasm for once. His hand ran through a shock of red hair as he shrugged noncommittally. He closed the door of their compartment and took the seat opposite her after Neville Longbottom scooted aside to oblige him. She smiled at them both, lingering on Ron while ignoring the redheaded girl beside her who pretended to gag herself.

The male carrot top tossed a candy wrapper at the disgusted female. He must have gotten her somewhere good, because shortly thereafter there was a shouted "Ron!" followed by a return of fire. Ron threw up his arms, shielding himself from the sticky wad of paper that came his way.

Hermione chuckled softly, sadly, at the antics of the siblings before affixing her chin to her hand and propping her elbow up on the windowsill. The passing landscape was beautiful that morning as the sun danced in and out of the clouds, but her thoughts were on different shadows than the ones that swept across the hills of sprightly grass.

The quiet darkness of the alley outside the club had been a comfort after an hour of pounding, unfamiliar Muggle tunes. She hadn't been stupid about it. She had kept the steel, one-sided door propped open with her foot. It just had never occurred to her that if a monster snuck up and attacked her, no one inside the club would hear her screams.

She felt chills as she remembered the thing that had chased her through the maze of alleyways. Horns, a bull's head, a monstrous torso that was barely human, but what she remembered was the eyes—horrible, maddened eyes. In the middle of Muggle London, a creature of myth and Dark magic had found her with those bloodied eyes.

After, she had spent days in Research. She now knew it had been a Minotaur rather than a Taurus, like she had first thought, but that didn't exactly soothe her. Being eaten alive was hardly an improvement over…she repressed a shudder, and then sighed. All right, perhaps it was a slight improvement. Either way though, she doubted she would have left the alleyway alive if it hadn't been for the boy.

Her thoughts turned to the stranger. She just had so many questions. How had he saved her? How had he done it?

She wanted to know. Bravery and guts kept her going in a fix, but the unknown still frightened her. Knowledge made her competent; knowledge made her useful; but being in the dark made her a damsel in distress. Needless to say, she hated it.

"Hermione?"

She glanced over at Ron and realized she had been wearing her thoughts on her face. One of her nails had even worked its way into her mouth to worry against her teeth. She pulled her hands to her sides and smiled in response to Ron's concerned look. Ron Weasley. Her tormentor. Her boyfriend. Her knight in shining armor, damn him.

Four years ago during the Halloween feast, he had been joking with his friends. Just words, but they had been about her, and she had taken them hard. Next came the usual. The dash to the bathroom, the crying alone in a stall, the mountain troll trying to bash her to pieces, and Ron Weasley coming in to save the day. Who knew what had convinced him to run in. He said guilt. She suspected a hero complex. But it was the action that counted, not the thought behind it.

He saved her life, he so often reminded her.

Barely, she would reply.

It was an old argument. They had shouted it back and forth from their beds in the hospital wing for so long that it was habit. If they didn't bicker about it once a week—thrice daily just before exams—people started asking if they'd had a falling out.

Yes, it was Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley Forever, it seemed. It was common knowledge that her fling with the Byronic dream named Viktor Krum had just been to get back at Ron for being an overprotective He-Man. She glanced downward. That had been an 'out of the frying pan, into the live volcano' scenario.

"'Nette?" Ron asked again, and she glanced up. 'Nette was short for Brunette, the somewhat flat joke being she was the only Weasley without red hair. She stared at him, unsure. She just wanted to think, and here he was, trying to save her from her thoughts.

The little sister came to the rescue. "Hey Ronnykins, shouldn't you be doing that Prefect thing?" the girl asked.

Ron sighed and stood, but he stopped at the compartment door and looked back and Hermione. "Go," she prodded him.

"You could come with," he suggested, but she shook her head.

"I opted out of being a Prefect, remember? Get going. You have First Years to save and the Malfoy Dragon to slay."

XXX

When the compartment door clicked shut, Ron's sister rounded on her. "What's going on with you, 'Nette?"

She sighed and turned away. "Nothing, Ginny."

"No," Ginny disagreed with her. "You and Ron were all over each other this summer, and now you're giving him the cold shoulder. What did he do?"

"It's not him."

"Then it's you!"

Neville was very quietly edging towards the door of the compartment. Hermione couldn't blame him. Ginny had her mother's temper coupled with her father's fanaticism.

"What's going on?" the girl was demanding.

Hermione sighed. "It's nothing, just something that happened when I was back with my parents."

"Something? Or someone?"

'Nette turned her head and watched Ginny's eyes get hard. "What are you saying?" she asked.

"You met someone. I know you did! The last time you treated Ron this way, you went and started fooling around with that Durmstrang lummox!"

Something snapped. Or broke, or ripped, or tore, or just simply _imploded_ inside of her. "Yea' Ginny," she half shouted, half sneered, "I started fooling around with a bloody Minotaur!" The younger girl's expression switched to horror, but that didn't stop old 'Nette. "Our first date was so romantic. It chased me into a back alley and tried to eat me! Sure Ginny, I dumped Ron for a Dark monster that enjoys human flesh!"

She stopped, realizing that the nearby compartments could hear her raving. _"Get out,"_ she growled softly. And Ginny got out. The girl moved so fast, she sideswiped Neville going through the door. He fell to the floor and scrambled out after her, not even taking the time to get fully upright. His bottom had just cleared the door when Hermione slammed it shut.

Then she leaned her back against it and pressed her palms into her temples, her fingers digging into her hair. The curls that took pounds of product to defrizz and coax into existence were one exasperated scream shy of being wrenched right out of her head. She hated being a damsel. Her name was Hermione, not Guenevere. She didn't need a knight in shining armor.

Just the armor.

XXX

"The Boy"

When Hermione exited the train that evening, she left an odd wake of avoidant people behind her. Either the entire train had come to know of her outburst or the look on her face was just that murderous. She pressed through the crowd of students with little trouble and stalked to the line of dark gleaming carriages. She paused only a moment to blink hard. It did her no good. She still saw an odd flicker spaced between the carriages. The eyespots stood where the horses might be rigged if the magical coaches needed them. She shook her head, reminded herself not to read by dim candlelight anymore, and garnered herself an empty carriage.

Once inside, she slumped into the seat and closed her eyes. She wanted Crookshanks. The cat had a peculiar habit of sneaking into her arms and purring when she was feeling glum, but there was no luck of that. The tabby had been gotten rid of after Ron's greasy old rat went down his gullet. She sighed and listened to the booming sound of the gamekeeper's voice.

"_First Years, gather 'round_—come here, lad; wouldn't want ye' to miss the sight o' Hogwarts o'er the water—_First Years!" _

Inside the confines of the carriage, she cracked a smile. Hagrid. The two of them had become a type of friends two years ago when he came to her, asking for help with a curriculum. Turned out he had only managed to come up with the one lesson about hippogriffs over the entire summer. The only other thing he could think of was flobber worms, and Merlin knew he couldn't make that lesson stretch an entire school year. So she had dropped Divinations—load of poppycock, anyway—and become the Magical Creatures teacher's aide.

It was an…interesting experience.

When she wasn't "helping" Hagrid to grade papers, he was introducing her and bodyguard Ron to Aragog (leaving the redhead sort of twitchy for weeks) or failing to convince her and the hippogriff Buckbeak that a little ride together over the lake wouldn't kill them. She sighed and wondered what new terrors…er, experiences the groundskeeper had cooked up for the students this year. He had two years of lesson material to rehash and teach to new and older students, but experience had taught her that he always came up with something fun after every holiday break.

Hagrid's version of fun was not for the weak-stomached.

She prayed to God, Merlin, and anyone else who would listen that Hagrid wasn't planning a lesson on Minotaurs.

"_This one's full up. Try the next one over."_

She opened her eyes at the sound of Ron's voice and watched the carriage door swing open to admit him. He had on that worried look where his face sort of scrunched to one side. Nose, mouth, and everything. The door clicked shut behind him, and she found herself pulled into his arms before he had quite sat down beside her. "Why didn't you tell me, 'Nette?" he demanded as she turned her head away from his chest to stare at the carriage's black, curtained window.

She sighed, "I didn't want you to worry." She didn't. She didn't want him to treat her like glass, like she was still scared, like she needed to be held and be told he'd protect her. She wanted to hold onto someone and hear him say that she was strong, that she would get over it, and that next time she would win.

Ron was stroking her curls. "It's all right, 'Nette," he murmured to her, "no more monsters. I won't let them get you."

She closed her eyes as the carriage started to roll and listened to the soothing words that she didn't want to hear.

XXX

Ron didn't remove her from his arms even when they reached the Hreat hall. She managed not to sit in his lap like she had been in the carriage, but his arm still wrapped around her waist and her head was pillowed into chest. She stared off down the length of the hall towards the enormous doors where the First Years would eventually enter.

She got the feeling that some Slytherins had been making fun of her when Ron jerked his head up sharply and told Millicent and Pansy to "stuff it." Not surprisingly, the girls didn't retort anything loud enough for him to hear. Ron was indisputably the leader of the pack for their Year. Funny, confident, upwardly mobile—everything anyone could want.

He was a Jack-of-all-Trades on the Quidditch field, though he favored Keeper, and had been known to out-keep, out-chase, and out-bludgeon Slytherin all on the same match—with the notoriously partial Slytherin Head of House on referee duty, no less. It was said he'd be team captain next year when Alicia Johnson graduated.

Considering the grand success of last year's Tri-wizard Tournament—namely the lack of deaths—the next one was planned to be held at Beauxbatons during their Seventh Year, and Ron was a shoe-in for Hogwarts Champion.

Add to that his Prefect status, his pretty brunette girlfriend, and his notoriety for punching out Draco Malfoy, and he seemed to be the perfect guy.

Why was Hermione constantly reminded of a big fish in a little pond?

XXX

It was a bit of a sight to see the young, raven-haired man rising out of the sea of nervous First Years like some steadfast pillar of rock. Unconsciously identifying him as a protector, the children gathered around him in an odd clump where each youngster fought to be the one standing directly behind his back. Apparently someone had been telling the First Years horror stories about being sorted again. The older boy took it with a wry grin and just tried to keep his balance inside the mass of writhing, wide-eyed children.

Professor McGonagall patiently explained the purpose and method of sorting to the poor little waifs before handing the stage to the infamous rhymester otherwise known as the Sorting Hat. It launched into its song with apparent zeal and a little footless tap dance on its stool to seal the deal. Unfortunately, no one seemed to be paying much attention except the First Years, and to some extent the Seconds, who were just now realizing that the Hat actually made up a new rhyme every year. The rest of the school's attention remained pretty much fixed on the new arrivals, trying to judge how many and which of them would end up in their respective Houses.

The Hat seemed oblivious to the inattention and accepted the distracted applause at the end of its song with glee.

Then McGonagall stepped forward again, adjusted her spectacles, and began reading the alphabetically arranged list. "Abercrombie, Euan," she said, and the boy nervously made his way to the hat. He was sorted into Gryffindor.

Ron gave the boy an enthusiastic, two-fingered whistle. His other arm stayed wrapped around Hermione, who still stared away from the Sorting Hat and towards the collection of First Years and their older compatriot.

McGonagall ran down the ordered list that seemed to run like a toddler's rendition of the alphabet song. _"A, A, B, D, E, F, H, K, L, L, L, L, some more Ls,"_ and so on. No one paid much attention to the names anyway.

"Harry Potter."

At least not until they reached the letter P.

XXX

McGonagall called out those famous two words with a small swell of pride, unconsciously reversing the order of names that she had used for every other child. It only seemed natural. He was Harry Potter, after all, more of a symbol than a person. Yes, he lived and breathed, but that was the miracle of it. The Dark Lord had come for Harry Potter, and fourteen years later the boy still lived.

The legend didn't appear to notice his call to run the gauntlet past the tables of students to where the Sorting Hat sat before the assembled teachers. Instead he stood nonchalantly amongst the children. He had his head cocked to the side in a rather owlish way as he appeared to be listening to his own thoughts with great interest. Finally, a young girl worked up the courage that would be her ticket into Gryffindor and tugged lightly on the sleeve of his robe. He straightened noticed the expectant hush around him for first time. Grinning lopsidedly, he murmured something that sent the First Years around him into a titter of giggles.

He finally stepped forward, allowing the students to breathe again—at least until he passed by them. He moved between the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor tables in a slow, controlled walk. It wasn't the pompous gait that obvious Slytherins used in a show of their own self-importance. He wasn't puffing out his chest. Nor was it the reluctant shuffle that future Hufflepuffs occasionally adopted as they steeled themselves for the worst. He wasn't shrinking into himself. And it was hardly the calculated pace the Ravenclaw-bound employed as they tried to drink in every drop of detail around them. He wasn't looking around at his surroundings at all. His head remained affixed atop his neck, facing his destination squarely.

It came as something of a surprise, then, when three-fourths to his destination, he abruptly stopped. His left hand moved out slightly in the direction of the Gryffindor table. "I never did catch your name," he mused as he inclined his head slightly, standing in perfect profile to girl to whom he spoke.

She had the acute discomfort of feeling hundreds of eyes jump to her, including her boyfriend's pair as he looked down to where she was still firmly attached to his chest. Her own eyes, of course, were transfixed on Harry Potter, much as they had since he first entered the Hall.

For Harry Potter was also the boy. The one who had saved her and disappeared before she could thank him and ask how. Those eyes of hers had almost popped out her head when she learned that he was none other than the Lost Savior.

Lost—and now Found.

Realizing that _he_ was waiting for an answer, she re-hinged her dropped jaw and managed to ungracefully mumble, "Hermione, I'm…I'm Hermione Granger." Not 'Nette, she realized. And, with more clarity than she had ever felt in years of Divination, she knew that the world was about to turn on its head.

He smiled and nodded in acknowledgment. "Basilisk," he replied in a firm, kind tone, but it wasn't until he started walking again that anyone realized he had been telling her his name.

Basilisk.


	4. Don't Write

Don't Write

_It was an early summer evening, and four friends sat and talked of the future even as it unraveled before their eyes._

* * *

It was an early summer evening, and four friends sat and talked of the future.

—

"Mum's trying for another baby. At her age—"

"Augh!"

"We didn't need that picture, Prongs!"

The wiry young man in glasses leaned back in his chair helplessly. He threw up his arms. "Well, she is!" he reasserted. "And how do you think I feel, with her and Dad going at…" He shuddered as his friends groaned. "Never mind. But really, they never wanted another kid until I made it through Auror training. Now all Mum talks about is having a nice little girl who will make grandbabies and not get herself killed!" He swiped the bottle of mead, forewent the empty thin-stemmed glass, and swigged. Swallowing, he lamented, "What's worse, fella's? That they think I'm a goner, or that they figure I'm expendable? Pump out James Junior"—someone kicked him under the table—"and everything's right as rain."

James went to take a second chug, but a hand plucked the bottle away from him. "'ey! Save the drink, you boozer," scolded the mead's rescuer before he promptly knocked it back. After gulping, he shook his free hand at the rest of them. "Now don't you look at me like that! I've got problems too, you know. Me poor mother's just died." He pouted. "I—I think I might just shed a tear."

He sniffed in the astonished silence that followed, and then cackled, "Hah! Tears of joy!" He stood and held aloft the bottle like a victory trophy. "The old witch is dead and the Tapestry can _hang _because I'm the only Black male left and I"—he grinned, his head waggling—"just inherited one Hell of a fortune." He started pouring the mead into the glasses on the table, sloshing half of it onto the tablecloth in the process. "A toast!" he cried, heaving the fullest glass into the air and losing half the contents. "Here's to having a filthy rich friend to loaf off of!"

"No complaints!"

"I'll drink to that!

"_Hell, I'll drink to anything, right now."_

"I heard that, James!"

"Shove it, Sirius."

Sirius Black grinned. "Sure thing," he chirped and threw the remaining contents of his glass in James's face.

Dripping, James sprang from his seat. "Damn it, Padfoot!"

"What? Think you can take me, little, scrawny, Momma's dead-boy?"

James grinned darkly. "You forget that I just went through Auror training." He shrugged off his outer robe, revealing nothing but an undershirt, standard issue combat breeches, boots, and a heap-load of muscles that had never been there before.

Sirius closed his eyes. "Shit."

—

And then they were off, Sirius with a slight lead as they dashed across the lawn, then back, zigzagging like a flight-challenged Seeker chasing an oversized Snitch who knew it was about to get snatched and hard. Back at the table, Remus and Peter sighed and muttered, "Children," for perhaps the five-millionth time. They did turn and watch, though, when James caught hold of his prey by the collar. Sirius wormed out of it by squirming out of the robes and dashing out into the night in his boxers.

James stared a moment, then snickered and waved the robes around. "Forget something, Snivellus?" he called.

Sirius stopped dead.

—

The two sane friends in the group shook their heads as, in the distance, a stag fled from a rather vengeful looking dog. Remus sipped a bit of mead before asking, "So how is life treating you?"

Peter nodded eagerly. "Good! Good. My apprenticeship's in the field, just through the summer. It was murder to get picked. Me and Arthur Weasley—you remember him?—we barely scraped through the requirements. It's going to be hard, but it'll be worth it to start at the Ministry on full pay and order people around two years older." He ducked his head and smiled. "Mmm, and you?"

Remus twitched. "…and what are you apprenticing for again? Sorry."

"Muggle Studies," Peter prompted. "It was always my best subject. I'm the only thing that kept you lot from failing the O.W.L. on it, remember?"

"Thank Merlin for that," Remus smiled. "Muggles are, by far, the world's most bizarre creatures."

"But wasn't your father a—?"

"Exactly." Remus threw up his hands. "Muggles. I'll never understand them."

"Well, that's what this field assignment is for: to understand them." A gleam entered Peter's eyes. "They really are bizarre, Remus. They been given so little—Squibs are better off than them—but look at all they've managed. Merlin, Moony, they've—they've walked on the Moon! No wizard's done that!" He caught Remus's slightly glazed look and slumped a little. "Sorry. There I go off about boring things." He blinked. "So, what did you say you were doing again? Some private bodyguard agency in London?"

Remus twisted his glass's stem in his fingertips. "What does it matter?" he asked bitterly, putting down his drink. "I'm not doing it anymore. And the next thing I try, there'll just be another background check…" he trailed off and smiled at Sirius as the half-naked man stumbled back to the table, panting.

Black slumped into a chair. He ignored the prancing stag taunting him back on the lawn. He picked at the tangle called his robes, trying to sort them out so he could put them on again. Every now and then, his gaze flicked to Remus, whose eyes were permanently downcast.

Peter bit his lip with his front teeth. "I'll just…be back," he mumbled and walked awkwardly into the house, leaving the pair alone.

—

"Well…"

Peter looked up from his packing at the sound of James' voice.

The sweat-streaked young man stood in the bedroom door with a tense look on his face. His eyes looked past Peter at a window that overlooked the back lawn. The curtains had been drawn shut. He dropped his gaze and spied the open trunk on the bed. "Packing?" he asked lightly and leaned his weight on the doorframe.

Peter nodded and picked up another shirt to fold.

"School clothes?"

He smiled, ducking his head slightly at the confused sound of his friend's voice. "They pass for Muggle clothes without the outer robes. They'll do until I can get my hands on the real thing."

"Doesn't seem that hard. Go into the nearest dress shop—"

"Muggles don't have dress shops," Peter chided. "Not many, anyway."

James folded his bare arms over his chest. He had left his robes at the table where Sirius and Remus were. "What do they do, then? Make everything from scratch?"

"No. They use their machine things." There was a low sound from outside, and Peter slammed the trunk shut. He was silent for a tense moment before he pressed on in a pleasant tone. "I don't know how they get the clothes. Something about hunting for the right size."

"Oh," sad James emotionlessly.

The forced conversation petered out. James Potter, heir of one of the Wizarding world's oldest families had never been interested in Muggles much. He didn't understand his friend's fascination with them. Yes, it was mystifying that they'd survived this long without magic, but they hardly seemed as remarkable as Peter made them out to be.

Peter was looking at the drawn window curtains. His hands gripped the front edge of his trunk. He bit his lip and turned to his friend. "James? I'll be out of touch for most of the summer. Can't have owls flying around; the Muggles will get suspicious. Don't write, but…" He glanced at the window. "When I get back, tell me if there's anything I should know."

James nodded with his eyes closed. "I'll do that."

"Thank you."

"No problem."

But there was.

—

Peter was packing his socks when Sirius appeared in the doorway. James was sprawled on the bed, staring at the ceiling blankly. Sirius cleared his throat, but they were too lost in their own thoughts. "Prongs? …Peter?"

Their eyes jerked to him, and he backed away slightly. One of his hands pressed into the outside wall, trying to jettison him back further. "Moony isn't feeling well." There was a slight hitch to his voice. "I'm going to take him home," he added.

Peter's hands, out of sight inside the trunk, twtiched. He steadied them and turned the bundle of brown socks around in them. He squinted in the faint darkness, wondering if they really were a pair or if one was a little too black. "When can we expect you back?" he asked Sirius softly.

Sirius eased out of the room another few inches. "No—no. I think I'll just stay home, too."

"Oh." Peter pulled the socks apart with a sharp tug and placed them on the bed with the trunk between them.

"I'll—write you, then." Sirius pushed himself away and strode down the hall.

Peter reached for the next pair of socks from his drawer. He stopped halfway. His fingers curled into a weak, pensive fist. "Write. He can't write," he muttered and strode out the door. He stopped at banister that overlooked the foyer. "Si—" He recoiled.

Sirius's dark, half-buttoned robes curled around Remus's scruffy, brown ones. His sleeved arms wrapped about Moony's back tightly. With one hand, he pressed the man's limp head into his chest. "My place, then," he said gently, kissed Remus's crown, and apparated the pair of them away, leaving their eavesdropper clutching at the railing.

In Peter's reeling mind, he saw the mismatched socks that had been paired together. Mistakenly paired.

—

Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs—childhood friends. Now it was just Padfoot and Moony, with Prongs evermore distant and distracted, and—

And Wormtail. "Wormtail. Wormtail? …Peter?"

He turned sharply to see Prongs standing in the hall. The man smiled ruefully. "You really don't answer to Wormtail anymore, do you?"

He looked down. "I don't think of myself as him anymore, James," he sighed.

"Well, you're still one of the Marauders."

His hand slid along the banister railing, leaning. The wood creaked under his weight. "Am I?" he asked. "Are we still the Marauders? It looks to me like Remus and Sirius…" He sighed and turned to James even as he sagged and bowed his head. "I want them to be happy," he asserted. "Remus needs someone. He deserves it. And I don't even mind that—" He looked up, lost. "But Padfoot?"

James's eyes fell out of focus.

With a touch of building anger, Peter went on, "It's been driving me mad. I don't know if I'm seeing things or if"—he paused—"or if they're playing an elaborate joke."

James cracked a smile. "It's something Padfoot would pull."

"Yes. That must be it."

There was too much hope in their words. Peter's mask of smiling relief crumbled, revealing a dark expression. "Why couldn't they have just told us?" he demanded suddenly. "Do they think we're stupid!" His teeth clenched after that.

"Maybe they're scared."

He turned his back to James.

The man pressed on, words stumbling. "I mean, it's always been the four of us…even ground, never separated by anything…always there for... And they don't want to lose that, even when they've… They're afraid what you would…what we would think." He sighed. "I mean, what if Sirius had showed up here with one of his old girlfriends and said they were…getting married? Would you feel abandoned? Or would—"

"Don't you work this around to be about Lily," Peter warned, voice low, as his hands gripped the banister.

Haltingly, James asked, "Worm…er, Peter?"

"And don't think I'm stupid, Potter. If you do, then get out of this house."

There was a silence after that. Peter could picture exactly how James was standing behind him. The man had his forearm raised above his bowed head and pressed into the wall for support as he sagged under the weight of everything. It was his weakness, this need to express every trivial emotion with his entire body. When joyful, he jumped. When angry, he would forego his wand for a tackle. One day he would get himself killed mid-leap, Peter was sure.

And when feeling like he had no one he could depend on, James leaned on anything he could get his hands on.

Peter leaned heavily on the banister.

He closed his eyes as he said goodbye.

"Don't write."


	5. The Social Worker

The Social Worker

It was an anonymous tip, and the party in question was popular in the community, so naturally the claim of abuse vanished almost immediately. Someone caught it, though, and wouldn't rest until she learned the truth about Number Four. Abused!Harry fic

* * *

If asked, Christine wouldn't be able to answer how, exactly, she had stumbled onto the tip-off about Number Four. Not without incriminating herself. She had been at work and digging around in a place her employer would be furious to find her. One could only be a stand-in for a broken text-reading scanner for so long, however, and she would forever claim the short moment of rather serious rule-breaking had been medicinal. Questions of how did not matter. What did matter was that she came across the short, terse, flaming mad, and completely anonymous cry of abuse right before it was abruptly erased from the system.

Her first, ingrained thought was that it wasn't any of her business. Her second was that if she started investigating the vanished claim when she was supposed to be working, the boss ogress would eat her with caper sauce. When she still found herself hesitating to return to typing up two-hundred page contracts, she asked herself why the hell she cared.

The answer was she had no clue, but that didn't stop her from needing to do something. Anything.

That was why she lingered one moment more on a part of the computer she wasn't supposed to have access to and quickly jotted down the address of one Number Four.

—

That Saturday Christine found herself looking between a haggard-looking piece of paper and her destination. Number Four stared innocently back at her, flanked by its near-identical neighbors. Only near-identical; the one she wanted did give off a slightly more prestigious air than those surrounding it. She wondered for a moment if the air was just that: hot air. That done, she went back to asking herself what the Hell did she think she was doing.

The abuse charge had been deleted. What was more, it was the weekend, and her only responsibility that fine morning was to be fast asleep in her bed.

She crushed the paper in her fist.

—

Her first impression of the inside of Number Four was: _"Whatever you're selling, we don't want any!"_ She rocked back on her heels, blinking. It had happened _again,_ which begged the question of exactly how pervasive these roving door-to-door sales people were to elicit such a uniform, automatic, and all-together annoying response. She gritted her teeth, though, forged on, and worked her way through the clichéd introduction.

In that painstaking manner, Christine progressed her way further into Number Four's little world. And then she saw him. Or rather, she was blinded by the golden child before her. There had to be a better word for it, but obese fell off the tongue so nicely. Someone had taken a more or less normal, delightful little boy and swelled him to gigantic proportions. He was actually painful to behold. It was like staring into the sun. And like the sun, this enormous body of matter had pulled all sorts of things into orbits about itself. She stared, shocked by the sheer number of gifts encircling the boy.

Yes, she had heard of Marys and Harrys whose progenitors felt the need to lavish them with every gift imaginable, but until now she had never personally witnessed such slavish devotion. Good God, it was understandable not to want a cherished love one to want for anything, but didn't they know that a lack of adversity made for weak character?

Weak character was one way to put it. Being spoiled rotten was another. How anyone could expect a child to grow up immersed in such gaudy…opulence and not turn out as an arrogant pig was beyond her.

Distracted as she was, it took several minutes to realize her jaw was dropped and had been for some time. Though she did manage to shut her open mouth eventually, she couldn't help her disapproving frown. Over-providing may not have constituted abuse, but it was still extremely bad form.

She sighed. It wasn't something that was easily fixed, though. The proud creator of such a glorious being would be hard pressed indeed to admit to even the most trifling of character flaws. She fought back the need to groan and rub at her temples. As if on cue, Vernon Dursley let loose a volley of, oh God, _CAPITALILZED _exclamations of the most zealous kind. Truly, she had never met a more flat, one-sided character.

That is, until she met Petunia. As for their son Dudley, she could hardly bear to look. Perhaps if she scrutinized him closely she could find traces of personality and (dare she hope?) humanity in the bloated whale; however, she had neither the proper excavation tools on hand, nor the time—nor the _stomach_—to dig through so many miles of corpulent blubber merely to find his only presumably un-rotten core.

At first it seemed a blessing to finally move onto the final occupant of the pleasant home on Pivet Drive. Harry Potter, Petunia's nephew, stood in front of the stove, cooking eggs, bacon, and griddle cakes with a sort of economical grace that would turn the cook in a waffle house green with envy. Dressed in worn, oversized castoffs, he fit the picture of a waif: slender and, God knew how he managed it, innocent-looking, a physical embodiment of purity and all that was good in the world.

He didn't even seem particularly affected by the bone-deep bruises so poorly concealed by his ill-fitting clothes.

She almost gagged as bile wormed its way up her throat.

Harry did something, then, what exactly wasn't really clear, and Vernon predictably reared up in a fit of rage. Christine sighed, walked to the fridge, poured herself a glass of ginger ale and sipped at it quietly for a time to settle her stomach before turning back to the scene of domestic violence. She frowned. It was rather cliché and—not that it would have helped overly much—executed poorly. She had to give points for trying, though. The bruises were rather beautifully rendered. Still, the whole thing left a sour taste in her mouth.

She took another sip of soda. In an uncharacteristic flare of indignant ire, she momentarily seethed and wondered what to do to knock some sense into Number Four. However, the earlier charge of abuse's prompt disappearance made it abundantly clear that there was nothing she could really do, so she shrugged and only paid enough attention to the boy's screams to know when they ended. She was hardly concerned for his wellbeing; there was little doubt he would come out of the abuse unscathed. Oh, there could be possible superficial damage such as blindness, shattered bones, or psychological scarring from repeated rape, but there was no way in Hell his charm, boyish good looks, or, God forbid, his libido would come to any permanent harm.

To an outsider it must have seemed a bit odd, but she found herself completely indifferent towards Number Four's Harry Potter. The only thing that would make her bat an eyelash was if he actually died.

Just to shake things up.

—

He was curled up in a pitiable ball of battered limbs in the darkness, now, making all the right noises to elicit complete pity from the reader. It was too little too late. Christine frowned and thought back to the sickening image she had been hit with upon entering Number Four's domain, the sight of a corpulent golden child laden down with every gift on God's green earth and then some: Harry bloody Potter. Wandless magic, multiple Animagus forms, the uncanny ability for his mulish opinion of Severus Snape to be completely right despite any and all evidence to the contrary—he really didn't lack for anything, now did he? Even the Dursleys' abuse was a blessing in disguise; it forced everyone else to love and pity him because he had problems so much bigger than anything anyone else had ever suffered.

Right.

She looked down at her softly fizzing ginger ale. Yes, it was Number Four's treatment of Harry that had turned her off. The author loved him and everything about him, there was no doubt about that, but the girl only seemed capable of showing that love by giving him praise he didn't deserve, lauding him for qualities he didn't have, and showering him with more gifts he had had any right to. And (if that weren't enough) she made his pedestal seem all the more high by ignoring the redeeming qualities of her Harry-kins' fellow characters and reducing them to disgusting, ungrateful, criminally insane worms. How…

She laughed and almost choked on her drink.

How _Dursley_-ish.

* * *


	6. Shattered

Shattered

_Granger had mentioned withdrawal symptoms once in one of her intermittent ramblings. It felt like those. He smirked, coming back to the present, and leveled his wand at the skeleton swooping through the gaping doorway. Time for his fix. HGDM…er, ish?_

* * *

She watched Merope Gaunt hold her newborn son even as death claimed her. Deep in the haze in her slightly crossed eyes the love of a mother was struggling to break through. It was a love the Boy-Who-Became-Voldemort would never know. The young witch wondered if the Dark Lord's mother might have fought harder and won the battle against heartbreak and blood loss, if she had known the path he son would take without her to guide him. Surely a woman able to look past blood and even magic would never have allowed her child to begin this horrible war. Surely if there had been someone, anyone, there to offer love, it would never have come to—

"Granger!"

She gasped as her head was wrenched out of the chipped and hastily caulked pensieve. A hand chapped by harsh lye soap released her lank, tangled braid. Her shoulder crashed down onto the broken, uneven concrete. With one ear pressed to the ground, she shivered to hear the deep screams of the earth as it was blown apart. Another bombing run from the States, another wizard raining down fire to wipe out Muggles from the face of London, who knew; the screams were the same. He parents had been evacuated, she was grateful for that. Her dad with his cousin in Illinois, her mum in a quarantine center. The States still hadn't decided what to do with the carriers. They were still arguing about what to do with the children. How many of those children's mothers were dead? How many would go Dark? Would the world survive long enough to fear their hate?

"Granger!"

She glanced up at the tattered pair of dark slacks. The jeans fit him better, the choosy beggar.

He hauled her to her knees and shook her until her brain rattled. Her eyes snapped into focus. "I'm here." His hand took her chin. She stayed quiet as he turned her head from side to side. It took an act of extreme will to keep her eyes focused on him. She wanted nothing more than to forget him and focus on something interesting like the first contact overtures between the Muggle States and the American Magic Confederation. The Voodoo High Priestess had threatened to sever all—

She gritted her teeth and forced herself to stare into those stormy, skeptical, utterly boring eyes. After eternity, he nodded. "Granger, the ceiling collapsed—_don't look!"_ He wrenched her head back down. His uninteresting eyes bore into hers. "The wards had to kick in to keep us from being crushed. They'll be locking in on my magic signature any second. Is it ready?"

She looked to the corner of the bomb shelter. He let her. Drawn into the one patch of unbroken concrete floor were thousands of tiny, ancient runes. He had done most of it. She could never hold her interest long enough to do much more than correct his mistakes. Humming, she lurched almost out of his grasp. He reasserted his grip as she shuffled over to the massive swirling design. The grease pencil and dampened rag were pressed into her limp hands. His one arm wrapped around her waist, and he wrapped her braid around his hand. He could never decide whether he wanted to lop her hair off or keep it to use as a tether.

They knelt and she bent over the runes. The mistakes stuck out at her. They looked so interesting. The phantom taste of mineral spirits clung to the roof of her mouth as she rubbed out the marks and wrote her own symbols in the emptied spaces with the grease pencil. "Just a few more," she murmured. His surprised glance was lost on her as she began to mark in a circle of runes around the entire design.

His breath caught, not because it was almost complete, not because she was penciling in dozens of the most ancient, powerful runes known to Wizardkind without even needing a book for reference, but because the shelter's steel door had just been blown off its hinges. The rubble shored up against it went flying into the far corner. Thankfully not the design's corner.

Granger, for a miracle, hadn't noticed the commotion. When he released her, she fell to her knees and, unblinking, continued filling in the outer circle. His fingers dove into a pocket curled around the base of a wood stick, the wand he hadn't dared to touch for eight months. He could still remember the way his blood had sang as he laid down the protective wards for this little Muggle hovel of an underground shelter. All through the ensuing crazed dash through London with the Death Eaters on his heels, he couldn't stop thinking that he had never felt so alive. But the following months of scuttling around like a Muggle cockroach had been unbearable, and being buried alive, surrounded by walls of crumbling concrete and his beautiful, shimmering, dormant magic was a Hell of the most diabolical design. Granger had mentioned withdrawal symptoms once in one of her intermittent ramblings. It felt like those.

He smirked, coming back to the present, and leveled his wand at the skeleton swooping through the gaping doorway. Time for his fix.

Her hand stilled.

The skin graft went warm as the first Death Eater crumpled. He barely felt it. The heady warmth of magic flooding through his veins almost made him miss it when Granger began to aimlessly hum. He whirled back to face her. The circle was finished. The entire design was complete, but inert. Their eyes chanced to meet. She stiffened. "Finish it!" he screamed right before a curse banished him into the wall.

Granger glanced down at the runes with a troubled look marring her face. She didn't see the slight hesitation of the figure in the skeleton mask. The fallen wizard clutching at his ribs darted anxious glances into the dim in search of his fallen wand. The witch swept her arm forward, a wood stick held awkwardly in her hand.

Only a pencil.

The Death Eater whipped his wand toward the diving wizard.

The pencil touched the center of the design.

Two curses hit the Death Eater's unprotected back.

The skin graft itched as his fingers closed around the fallen wand.

A lanky figure leapt into the bomb shelter, then froze, mimicked a moment later by its twin. "Hermione?"

Paying them no heed, Granger finished the symbol's final loop.

Light flooded the darkness.

* * *

She fell to the ground, her ear on the concrete. Another bombing, another wizard's rain of fire, who knew; the earth's screams were the same. This time, though, there was harmony. She listened to the wail of the sirens and to the sobbing surrounding her. Children? The States didn't know what to do about the children.

"Lu—lumos."

She glanced up at the sudden glow. Light spell. She knew the casting. Simple. It was the voice that caught her attention. She peered through the light to study the haggard wide-eyed face. Red hair. Weasley. Ron. No, George. Or was he Fred? She frowned at the mystery.

The other twin appeared in the small sphere of light. "M…Mione?" this one asked. Then they were both crushing her in their arms. Which one was which, she wondered. Did they know, or had they been mixed up as infants?

It grew quiet for a time. The unseen children and even the earth stopped crying for a time. Only the sirens remained vigilant. A pale ghost flickered at the glow's edge. "Granger?"

The twins reacted for her. One spun her away into a protective embrace. The other reared up and leveled his wand. "Malfoy."

The ghost's arm whipped up.

The twin snarled a syllable. _"Av—"_

_"No."_

Three faces glanced sharply at hers. Only one of the wizards understood the reason for her gritted teeth as she fought for lucidity. "He took care of me," she finally managed to force past her lips. The standing twin's wand arm went slack. The one with his arms around her went rigid. Even though they looked identical, they reacted differently. With a little time, she would be able to tell one from the other, though she still couldn't be sure which was Fred and which was George. As her concentration on the moment slipped, her head nodded.

The angry one drew her cheek to his chest and raised his still-glowing wand. "What did you do to her, you sick—"

She snapped back into reality and swatted down his hand. "No!"

Draco Malfoy closed his eyes and said one word before he crumpled to the ground, spectrally pale and bleeding. _"Azkhaban."_

And without her knowing why, she sobbed.

* * *

_Hmm. It's sort of a beginning to a timefic, I guess, but I don't know whether I want to go through with it or not. I was just playing with the concept and tried to come up with something different. As far as I know, Draco has never used an insane Hermione to get him to the past so he could raise the Dark Lord as his own before…nor have the twins ever bungled their way into a serious timefic…so I guess I succeeded._


End file.
